Many of us are forced to deal
with personal issues because of our political-cultural beliefs. A typical
situation might be a wife or girlfriend—the great majority of activists on the
dissident right are male—who is terrified of it becoming known that she is
associated with someone who is shunned and socially ostracized. But of course,
it may also be other family members or friends—a particularly painful
experience.
Let’s assume that doxing would
only result in social opprobrium, not loss of livelihood—admittedly a much
easier case. And let’s also assume that your significant other is not a
committed social justice warrior. Such people are completely intolerant of opinions
that conflict with their dogmas and they are fueled by hatred toward people
like you. Such people are impossible to reason with. They prefer spewing
hatred, typically accompanied with ungrounded assertions of moral and
intellectual superiority. They do this within their echo chambers of
like-minded people, ignoring data they don’t like and never encountering a
dissenting voice. Trust me, you can’t talk to them.
Since we still have a
functioning First Amendment, the establishment uses informal means of punishing
dissenters, and pressure on employers is the first option. While Marxists rail
at the evils of capitalism, the fact is that all the major corporations are
completely on board with the official ideology on race and gender, and are all
too willing to fire those who dissent. It is completely understandable for
people threatened by loss of livelihood to maintain a low profile, especially
if they have a family to support.
You're late to the party, halfwit. All your speech-squelching,
smear-mongering allies at SPLC, ADL, SorosWorld & Big Tech Con Inc have
been diligently working on your wish to have me deleted. The line of #cancelculture cultists
is long. https://t.co/2gCzAqYyhO
— Michelle Malkin
(@michellemalkin) December 30, 2019
But there are many who risk
only social opprobrium—retired people, the self-employed, or the financially
secure. Of course, being ostracized from polite society doesn’t bother the
activists personally. They may suffer psychologically, but they firmly believe
they are right, and they often have like-minded friends, if only in cyberspace.
The problem comes from trying to find simpatico mates and friends beyond
activist conferences and online communities.
An obvious strategy is to use a
pseudonym and this is necessary and desirable for many. Lots of people do,
including a clear majority of the writers at TOO. However, pseudonyms don’t
completely solve the problem because the people who are terrified of doxing
can’t know for sure that it won’t happen some at point in the future. This
hangs over them like the sword of Damocles. It’s just a matter of time before
it drops, or so the thinking goes. And when it does, she would have to deal
with the cold stares, the terminated friendships, and perhaps antifa protesting
(or worse) in front of her home.
Perhaps the main point in my
recent book Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition is that Western peoples
are far more prone to valuing their moral reputation, especially in their
face-to-face world. Westerners create societies made up of close family,
friends and associates, as well as strangers where moral reputation is critical
for fitting in. This contrasts with societies in the rest of the world, where
moral status is filtered through kinship connections. The Western culture of
moral reputation worked well over long stretches of historical time, but in the
contemporary West, a hostile elite has achieved control of the media and
educational system, and they have managed to corrupt mainstream Christian
religious sects. This hostile elite has used its power to create a moral
community in which White identity and interests have been demonized. Standing
up to that places one outside this moral community and has major psychological
effects.
A famous example is Anne Morrow
Lindbergh when her husband, Charles Lindbergh, stated that Jews were one of the
forces attempting to get the United States to enter World War II. Shortly after
his speech, she wrote:
The storm is beginning to blow
up hard. …I sense that this is the beginning of a fight and consequent
loneliness and isolation that we have not known before. … For I am really much
more attached to the worldly things than he is, mind more giving up friends,
popularity, etc., mind much more criticism and coldness and loneliness. … Will
I be able to shop in New York at all now? I am always stared at—but now to be
stared at with hate, to walk through aisles of hate![1]
What is striking and perhaps
counterintuitive, is that the guilt and shame remain even when she is
completely satisfied at an intellectual (explicit) level that her beliefs are
based on good evidence and reasonable inferences and that they are morally
justifiable.
I cannot explain my revulsion
of feeling by logic. Is it my lack of courage to face the problem? Is it my
lack of vision and seeing the thing through? Or is my intuition founded on
something profound and valid? I do not know and am only very disturbed, which
is upsetting for him. I have the greatest faith in him as a person—in his
integrity, his courage, and his essential goodness, fairness, and kindness—his
nobility really…How then explain my profound feeling of grief about what he is
doing? If what he said is the truth (and I am inclined to think it is), why was
it wrong to state it? (From Chapter 8 of Individualism and the Western Liberal
Tradition.)
Her reaction is involuntary and
irrational—beyond the reach of logical analysis. Charles Lindbergh was exactly
right in what he said, but a rational understanding of the correctness of his
analysis cannot lessen the psychological trauma to his wife, who must face the
hostile stares of others because her husband’s beliefs place him outside the
moral community she values.
Women are more connected to the
social world. They care more about having friends and being respected in the
community. Men want to feel connected too, but they are also more willing to
take risks. And men’s reproductive prospects are far more linked to being part
of a dominant group, so men are far more concerned about politics and the
distribution of power. Men tend to suffer more when there is an alien takeover:
history is replete with men being slaughtered and women taken as wives and
concubines by the winners (as happened with the Indo-European invaders of
Europe and elsewhere, Genghis Khan and the Mongols, etc.).
And in the contemporary world,
any non-brain-dead White male has to be aware that the current hegemony of our
new elite has meant that White heterosexual males are the most demonized class
in all Western societies. White males are regarded as historical oppressors and
the basic reason for the failures of certain (low IQ) non-White groups. Their
statues are being removed, their culture ridiculed and hated. Most importantly,
their political representation is steadily declining.
New Tory MPs vs. new Labour MPs.#UKelections2019pic.twitter.com/Kb02f4kyb8
— Philippe Marlière
(@PhMarliere) December 19, 2019
So how should one talk to a
significant other about the very real dangers of being on the dissident right?
I think a good tactic is to point out that many people are being attacked these
days, not just people linked to full-blown race realism, opposition to
immigration and multiculturalism, and assertions of Jewish power and influence.
Individuals associated with the Trump administration have been harassed on the
street and barred from or insulted in restaurants. MAGA hat-wearing people have
been physically attacked in broad daylight in public places. With impunity.
Mainstream conservatives have been greeted with mass protests, riots, and moral
panics at college campuses.
Your significant other may
relate to the fact that the censorious left is shutting down many ideas that
were entirely mainstream and respectable just a few years ago. If we are not to
become something like the society imagined in Orwell’s 1984 (we’re already quite close
given the wall-to-wall propaganda and ubiquitous surveillance by government and
left-leaning big tech), we have to stand up to this. Again assuming one’s
significant other is not a dyed-in-the-wool social justice warrior, she should
relate to that as threatening all that she valued in the society she grew up
in, including especially her own children. (It’s well known that women
get more conservativewhen
married and as they get older.) This should make her able to buck up and
withstand the hostility, so that she’ll join you in firmly believing “We’re the
good guys, and they’re evil.”
Having a demonstration outside
one’s house is terrifying to many of our weaker brethren. It’s probably number
one on their list of fears since it’s very public and it strikes very close to
home. But that’s what happened to Tucker Carlson who was harassed by a mob
of antifa outside his house. One can imagine the fear his wife, alone in the
house, felt as one of the masked cowards pounded on the front door. Despite
repeated attempts to get Carlson fired and quite successful campaigns to
get advertisers to boycott his show, Carlson continues with his edgy views and
still draws a huge audience. And as far as I know, his marriage is fine—even
though he likely can’t show his face in public in the deep blue urban areas of
America.
What are some things that would
affect how his wife felt about all this? One thing would be whether she
believes that her husband is honest and sincere in his beliefs. Because they
are sharing their lives, she has a long experience with him in a wide range of
areas besides political opinions. She knows if he is trustworthy or
duplicitous, whether he has strong moral convictions or is prone to
manipulating others for personal gain. If she thinks of him as basically a good
guy who is doing his best to have well-grounded opinions, it would make her
stronger, more willing to deal with the haters who are doing their best to make
their lives miserable.
Assuming that he has honestly
held, morally defensible ideas, this increased willingness to simply reject the
haters is likely even if she doesn’t fully agree with his opinions or even
understand them completely (e.g., understanding Jewish issues is difficult
without doing a lot of reading and all too easily results in oversimplified
assertions by those without some background in the area). And, again assuming
that there is trust in the relationship, a greater willingness to put up with
the haters is likely even if, like many Americans, politics is not at the
center of her world—even if she doesn’t dwell on the future of Whites as a
minority in a hostile world but is far more involved with family, church, or
hobbies like music, cooking or gardening. Again, in general, women are not as
politically focused as men.
As with Anne Morrow Lindbergh,
simply believing that her husband is honest and correct in his opinions may not
remove the psychological distress. But it likely makes it easier to put up with
the “aisles of hate.”
If your significant other is
not an enthusiastic believer in the ideas of the dissident right, I would also
suggest not being obsessed with politics in day-to-day conversation with her.
Again, she may be more interested in family, friends, and hobbies than the
latest example of how the Israel Lobby has manipulated U.S. foreign policy.
That’s fine. Showing an interest in what she is interested in is always good
advice.
So that’s all I can think of
for now. This is a really tough area for those on the dissident right. Control
by our hostile elite has made it psychologically difficult to have dissident
opinions, and we all live under the specter of formal legal punishments—as has
already happened in much of Europe—if the left manages to abrogate the First
Amendment (as they so ardently desire).
But for many of us, we don’t
feel that we have any other choice than to soldier on. And while we are
soldiering on, we should do everything we can to make life livable by having
good, rewarding relationships. Like Anne Morrow Lindbergh was forced to do, we
have to be willing to put up with “aisles of hate” should we be outed, and we
should do all we can to keep our relationships intact if that were to occur.
Living well is the best
revenge.
Footnote
[1] Anne
Morrow Lindbergh, War
Within and Without: Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1980), 220–239.
(Republished
from The Occidental Observer by
permission of author or representative)
